Unfortunately, due to the vexing complexities of academic style guides and the limitations of associated software packages, citing a non-standard name, such as Cher, Prince, or R Development Core Team can be problematic. Thankfully, I have discovered a simple trick in Word and EndNote that allows for the accurate automatic formatting of R citations. Note that this method was developed using Word 2011 and EndNote X4 for Mac. I am unaware of the differences between operating systems and software versions, but it is anticipated that this method will work for almost anyone.

The Intuitive, But Nonworking Way

If you were going to create your R record in EndNote, you would probably enter something like what is pictured below. In the name field, it makes sense to just type in R Development Core Team.

However, this is where things take an untimely turn. EndNote will try to interpret that peculiar name as a series of first, last, and middle names, which leads to inaccurate citations.

The Unintiuitive, But Working Way

This is where we basically need to trick EndNote into interpreting our R citation the proper way. All we have to do is add a comma after R Development Core Team in the name field.

This tells EndNote that R Core Development Team is a complete last name of an author that has no first name. Hence, EndNote uses what it has (a last name with no first name) in generating its citations.

Note: The official citation for R can be found by issuing the citation() command in the R console.

This is really helpful. But I have a follow-up question. According to the helpful website on APA format, the Purdue Owl (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/560/),"Software that is downloaded from a Web site should provide the software’s version and year when available."AND they provide an example: Hayes, B., Tesar, B., & Zuraw, K. (2003). OTSoft: Optimality Theory Software (Version 2.1) [Software]. Available from http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/otsoft/ I figured out that to get [Software], I should put that in the "Description" field in Endnote. But currently, my citation looks like this: R Development Core Team. (2014). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (Version 3.12) [Software]. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from http://www.R-project.org.

I'm wondering if it matters that it says "Retrieved" instead of "Available"